Coin bank



Sept. 28, 1943. w. J. ENGLERT 2,330,478

CO IN BANK Filed Jan. 5, 194.2

I INVENTOR. 1422136? JEwZer-Z "BYW&W

Patented Sept. 28, 1943 Walter J. Englert, R

one-half to Harold jointly chester, N. Y., assignor of n J. Nagle, and one-half to Reginald A. Nagle, both of Rochester, N. Y.,

Application January 5, 1942, Serial No. 425,651

Claims.

This invention relates to a receptacle made of cardboard or the like, adapted for easy insertion of coins and arranged to impede or prevent the surreptitious removal of coins therefrom, such receptacles being intended. to encourage the accumulation of coins for charitable or other purposes, and being commonly called coin banks!v An object of the invention is toprovide a generally improved and more satisfactory cardboard coin bank,,and more particluarly to provide an improved form of coin slot construction whereby the coin may be easily inserted in the bank but may not be removed therefrom without tearing or mutilating the bank.

Another object is the provision of an improved coinslot construction applicable 7 to cardboard coin banks of various different types or styles.

A further object is the provision of a. coin bank having improved means for holding certain closure flaps in proper closed position.

To these and other ends the invention resides in certain improvements and combinations of parts, all as will be hereinafter more fully described, the novel features being pointed out in the claims at the end of the specification.

In the drawing:

Fig. 1 is a plan of a cardboard blank from which a coin bank according to a preferred embodiment of the invention is made;

Fig. 2 is a top plan view of the completed bank according to the present invention;

Fig. 3 is a vertical section taken substantially centrally through the bank on the line 33. of Fig. 2; I

Fig. 4 is a vertical section through the upper part of the bank, taken on a plane at right angles to'the plane of Fig. 3;

Fig. 5 is a vertical section on the line 5-5 of Fig. 4, and

Fig. 6 is a horizontal section taken substantially on the line 6-6 of Fig. 3. x

The same reference numerals throughout the several views indicate the same parts.

The bank of the present invention maybe of either the so-called one piece or the so-called two piece construction, and may include or omit a paper wrapper or covering sheet around the cardboard body, as desired, these features being immaterial so far as the present invention is concerned. If a so-called one-piece construction is desired, as in the preferred embodiment of the taken substantially invention, a blank of cardboard, carton stock, or

similar sheet material is cut and scored to provide four side wall sections indicated, respectively, in Fig. 1, by the numerals |3, l5, and H,

and afiap' section H? which may be lapped over and glued to the inner face of the section near the free edge thereof, tohold thefour side walls in closed rectangular relationship.

According to the present invention, the upper ends of the side wall sectionsll, I3, and i5 are provided with closure flaps to be folded in overlying relation to .each other to form a top closure for the completed bank, these flaps being indicated by the numerals 2|, 23, and 25, respectively. In erecting the bank, the flap 25 is folded down first to form the innermost closure flap, this flap having a length equal to the full width of the inside of the box, so that the free edge of the flap 25 abuts tightly against the side wall II and rests upon the upper edge 21 of the flap I9, which supports it at the proper elevation and prevents it from caving inwardly. The flap 2| is folded down over the flap 25 to form an intermediate flap, and the flap 23 is folded down on top to form the outermost closure flap. The flap 23 is provided with a terminal flap or tab 29 tucked downwardly just inside the wall ll of the body.

A small ear 33, preferably of right triangular shape and with a horizontal upper edge, is cut from the tab 29 along its hypotenuse and its upper edge, and is scored along its vertical edge to form a hinge joint, and is struck inwardly during the stamping-out or cutting-out operation. This ear is so placed that its upper edge lies just beneath and substantially in contact with the lower surface of the lowermost closure flap 25, as seen best in Figs. 4 and 5, thus look ing the tab 29 against being pulled outwardly, and also helping to hold the flap 25 against being deflected inwardly. I l

The three closure flaps 2|, 23, and 25 areprovided with elongated coin slots 4|, &3, and .45, respectively. These slots are so placed in the respective flaps that they are not fully alined with each other when the flaps are folded down in closed position, but are offset in stepped or echelon formation as best seen in Figs. 2 and 4, the successive offset distances each being roughly about one-half the width of the slot, as shown. The result is that the effective coin slot formed through the three thicknesses of material is open at all times, but is open only in an oblique or inclined direction asindicated by the arrow 49 in Fig.4, Moreover, the slots are made of such width with respect to the thickness of the coins, and of such degree of overlap, that the coins fit tightly in the slot and must be thrust through the slot by substantial force exerted by the users fingers,

When a coin is to be placed in the bank, the edge of the coin is inserted in the slot and the coin is turned approximately to the angle shown by the arrow 59 and is then thrust obliquely downwardly. The carboard material of which the bank is made is slightly resilient, and as the coin is forced through the slot, it somewhat mashes down the square corners of the cardboard material which contact With the opposite faces of the coin during its passage. But after the coin has been fully inserted in the slot the corners spring back somewhat toward their orginal positions, due to the resilience of the material.

It is very difficult, if not practically impossible, to remove coins through this coin slot, once they have been placed inside the bank. If the bank be turned upside down and shaken, i1; is very unlikely that any coin would happen to fall into the slot at exactly the right angular relation nece-ssary to enable it to pass through the slot. Moreover, even if an occasional coin should happen to enter the slot at the proper angle, so that the plane of the coin is alined with the arrow 69, yet the mere impact or momentum produced by shaking does not furnish sufficient force to pass the coin through the slot, which crowds it frictionally on opposite faces. There is, of course, no way of obtaining access to the interior of the bank to apply force by hand to the coins (without tearing the bank apart) and thus the chance of success in surreptitiously extracting a coin from the bank is very slight. This encourages thrift and discourages attempts to remove and spend money previously placed in the bank.

The bottom of the bank is closed by flaps which are a reverse duplicate of the top closure flaps, except that the coin slots are omitted. Hence the bottom closure parts need no specific description, but are designated in the drawing by the same reference numerals respectively used for the corresponding top closure parts, with the addition of the letter a to each numeral.

If desired, the entire cardboard body of the bank may be enclosed or wrapped in a paper wrapper sheet, as familiar in the paper box art, which may be printed or lithographed with decorative or letter-press matter, as desired. If such a wrapper sheet is used, the box is preferably set-up or erected before it leaves the box factory, and the wrapper sheet is adhesively secured to the outer surfaces of the cardboard body, thus assisting in holding the top and bottom closure flaps in closed position.

Usually, however, no wrapper sheet is employecl, and ordinarily the bank leaves the box factory in collapsed or knocked-down condition, the flap l9 being glued to the section II and the sections H and El lying flat against the sections l3 and lb. The user erects the bank by swinging the four walls ll, l3, l5, and ET into proper rectangular relationship, then folding the flaps 25 and 21 down successively across the top of the body, and finally folding down the flap 2-3, at

the same time inserting the flap 23 between the wall H and the adjacent edges of the flaps 2i and 25. As the flap '23 goes down, the inclined or hypotenuse edge of the ear 33 strikes the edge of the flap 2i, and thereby is cammed into the plane of the flap 29, until the fiat horizontal edge of the ear 33 reaches the inner surface of the flap 25, whereupon the ear springs back approximately to the position to which it was set or struck during the stamping-out -process, thus underlying the flap 25 and anchoring the top from proper rectangular shape.

While one embodiment of the invention has been disclosed, it is to be understood that the inventive idea may be carried out in a number of Ways. 'This application is therefore not to be limited to the precise details described, but is intended to cover all variations and modifications thereof falling within the scope of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. A coin collecting box made of relatively stiff cardboard and having a wall comprising a .plurality of layers of cardboard in superposed, fixed relation to each. other, and an elongated coin slot in each layer, said slots being arranged in longitudinally parallel relation with each other andwith their respective ends in laterally alined relation, each .slot being offset laterally relative to the slot in the next cardboard layer by a distance less than the full width of the slot, so that said slots collectively form acontinuous slot of reduced width opening obliquely through said layers through which a coin may be inserted into the box Without substantially separating or bending said layers.

2. A coin collecting box as described in claim 1, in which the widths of the coin slots in the-several layers, and the extent to which the slot in one layer is oifset with respect to the slot in the next adjacent layer, are such that passage of a coin through the resulting oblique slot is frictionally resisted by the cardboard of which said layers are made.

3. Acoin collecting box made of relatively stilt, fibrous sheet material cut, scored and folded to provide side walls, closure flaps hinged to the upper edges of three side walls and folded downwardly in overlapping relation to each other,

and a coin slot formed in each of said three closure flaps, said slots being arranged in longitudinally parallel relation with each other and with their respective ends in laterally alined relation, each slot being offset laterally relative to the slot in the next adjacent flap, so that said slots collectively form a continuous slot of reduced width opening obliquely through said layers, in which the widths of the slotsin the several layers, and the extent to which the slot in one layer is offset with respect to the slot in the next adjacent layer, are such that the passage of a coin through the resulting oblique slot is frictionally resisted by thefibrous material of which said layers are made.

4. A coin collecting box made of relatively stifi, fibrous sheet material cut, scored and folded to provide side walls, an inner closure fiaphinged to one edge of one of said walls, an intermediate closure flap hinged to the corresponding-edge of another of said side Walls, an outer closure flap hinged to the corresponding edge of a third of said side walls, an elongated coin slot formed in each of said flaps, said slots being arranged in longitudinally parallel relation with each other and with their respective ends in laterally alined relation, each slot being'oifset laterally relative to the-slot in the next flap by a distance less than wardly from said terminal flap inside the inner surface of said inner flap for holding said closure flaps together and maintaining the said coin slots thereof in juxtaposed operative relation.

5. A coin collecting box made of relatively stiff, fibrous sheet material cut, scored and folded to provide side walls, an inner closure flap hinged to one edge of one of said side walls, an intermediate closure flap hinged to the corresponding edge of another of said side walls, an outer closure flap hinged to the corresponding edge of a third of said side walls, and an elongated coin slot formed in each flap, said slots being arranged in longitudinally parallel relation with each other and with their respective ends in laterally alined relation, each slot being ofiset laterally relatively to the slot in the next flap by a distance less than the full width of the slot, so that; said slots collectively form a continuous slot of reduced width opening obliquely through said layers, in which the widths of the slots in the several layers, and the extent to which the slot in one layer is offset with respect to the slot in the next adjacent layer, are such that the passage of a coin through the resulting oblique slot i frictionally resisted by the fibrous material of which said layers are made, a terminal flap secured to the edge of said outer closure flap remote from its hinged edge, said terminal flap extending inwardly past the edges of said inner and intermediate flaps and an ear struck inwardly from said terminal flap for underlying said inner flap to hold said flaps in substantial contact with each other and malntain said slots thereof in juxtaposed operative relation.

WALTER J. ENGLERT. 

